Too Long in the Night
by Mercury17
Summary: What if Moriaty had never appeared on those screens and Sherlock had taken off to go undercover? John tries to convince Mycroft to go on a rescue mission. Sherlock tries to survive with what he went through last time making it all the harder. As always, characters definitely not mine.
1. Chapter 1

"Once! He only showed me once."

Mycroft Holmes looked up from his desk, startled by John's outburst.

John Watson stood in the doorway of Mycroft's office realising he may have started the conversation he'd been practicing in his head half way through.

"Ah," Mycroft had pulled himself together in an instant. "I wondered how long it would take you."

It had been 1 week 3 days 5 hours and 45 minutes since Sherlock's plane had taken off, carrying him away to Eastern Europe. It had taken 1 week 2 days 20 hours and 17 minutes for the phrase '_6 months_' to filter through John's head before it became '_6 months until I die_'. And it had taken 9 hours and 28 minutes for John Watson to resolve on a course of action, take a cab to Pall Mall and storm up the stairs of Mycroft's apartment.

"That... that explains the lack of security." John was panting slightly now.

"Oh the security was there," Mycroft assured him "Just set up as a permeable membrane if you will - they were to allow you through unimpeded."

"OK. Oookay," John took a deep, steadying breath. "You sent your brother off to die in some Serbian hellhole and you knew I would work this out?"

"Please John, let's not make assumptions, it may not be the Serbians who get him this time." The flash of fire in the doctor's eyes made Mycroft reconsider joking.

"You're going to help me get him out." John said, his voice barely kept even over his seething anger "You sent him there, you know he's in danger, you knew I was coming, you must have a plan. Also, how long were you planning on waiting to see if I figured this out? Because it's not like time is of the essence here or anything. Mike."

"As long as it took - he does have another 5 and a half months left to him you know."

"No! No he dosen't because..." John broke off, considering the best way to convey his sentiments to the emotionless creature in front of him.

"He only showed me once, the scars from Serbia I mean. Do you get the implication of that?"

Mycroft shifted in his chair slightly, curious in spite of himself, and gestured for John to continue.

"Sherlock Holmes is not a man to hide his scars. Hide his pain, yes, whilst the wound is still fresh. Heaven forbid anyone should work out his body is human. But after that what would it matter to him? It's not worth his time to bother covering up something as superficial as a scar, as long as people don't think he's any less intelligent. And Sherlock has quite a few scars. Yet with his back - I only saw it once."

John remembered the day well. 5 days after the return. Sherlock had risen from his customary seat to wander off to his bedroom. John had noticed a streak of red through Sherlock's white shirt.

"God, Sherlock, have you hurt yourself?"

Sherlock jumped at the question and spun round.

"No of course not." The answer was too quick

"The back of your shirt Sherlock, come on I've already seen it, you may as well let me look. Won't breathe a word I promise."

Sherlock's reaction had been uncharacteristically unsettled. He started to back away from John, refusing to turn around.

"Sherlock..." John was getting worried.

"Fine! Have it your way. You'd probably find out eventually."

And Sherlock had turned around, unbuttoned his shirt, and exposed his back. John gasped.

"Sherlock only hides a wound that is still fresh and hurting, so as not to show any pain. Do you understand the pain he was in after Serbia?"

" I was ther-"

"And you watched! Mycroft this was torture. Someone taking days in trying to hurt him. Someone enjoying making him suffer. And all the while his family had been watching without lifting a finger to help him."

"It would have been unsafe."

"I don't care. Well, I do, but even if that was true that wasn't how Sherlock saw it. What I'm trying to get you to understand,"

John closed his eyes, trying to forget the criss cross of bloody wounds across his friend's back and arms. Trying to forget Sherlock's reluctance to let him help. Trying to forget the depths of horror in which he knew Sherlock was living and had not yet recovered from.

John pinched the bridge of his nose. "What I am trying to get you to understand is that we do not have 6 months. This is not a matter of black and white, life or death. This is about an already broken man being pushed past the point of no return. Mycroft there will come _a point at which we_ can _no longer rescue your brother_."

John knew from Mycroft's face that he was making progress. "Mycroft, we need in, and we need to get him out."

Sherlock ran. He ran through the forest, over ditches and dead trees until he reached the river. This wasn't like last time, he kept reminding himself, they had caught him last time. He dropped into the water and started making his way upstream.

OK so he'd been compromised here, but the mission wasn't a loss yet. His disguise had been too good, he was sure, for an accurate description. Time for cover story number two. Provided he survived the night of course.

Sherlock kept himself focused on the task at hand: namely getting away and masking his scent. But somewhere in the last 10 days, amongst the cold and pain and fear, he had stopped making plans for his return to Baker Street. He had been entertaining ideas of how to slip back into his old life at some point during his exile. Whether that was through pardon or disguise he wasn't sure yet. However, the longer he went on, the further away his old life seemed. And without that motivation, how long could he last?

Sherlock Holmes trudged on into the cold Serbian night, not yet aware that his hope had run out.

**-/-**

**First fanfic, so if you could please R & R I would be super grateful, con-crit of course being welcome:)**

**Have a few ideas for continuing this, let me know if you think it would be worth it.**

**Hope you enjoy, thanks for reading!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Thank you to everyone who took the time to review:) I'm grateful for the support to continue this, and have tried to take your comments on board. Here's my attempt at the next chapter. Hope you enjoy it:)**

John, in an attempt to take his mind off the fact he was just three hours away from touching down in potentially hostile territory, was contemplating just how comfy the seats on the jet Mycroft had commandeered were. They might just be the most comfy thing he had ever sat on he decided. Try as he might though, he just couldn't enjoy them. He drumed his fingers idly on the arm rest, clacking out a nervous rythom.

John saw Mycroft's lips thin ever so slightly in response to the noise and decided now would be as a good an opening as any for a conversation.

"Where are we going?" his voice sounded strange after so long in silence.

"To the first place Sherlock has been sent, a remote outpost of the Serbian military." came the patient reply.

"I thought Sherlock was doing some top level thing?"

"Yes he's to uncover suspected terrorist links of certain government agencies - some of which we are allied with - which we suspect are taking shady orders from traiturous members of our own government. To do this the agent sent was to infiltrate the top levels of these government agencies, then look for evidence of the wider implications of their dealings in the field.

"Unfortunately, despite my brother's undeniable competencey at such work, an operative with no option of returning home is hardly where you place all your trust. Even before his exile, Sherlock was looked at with suspicion by many within our own ranks. Therefore the mission has been somewhat turned on it's head. Sherlock is to have begun picking up information about government orders from remote locations such as this outpost. From there he is to work his way inwards hopefully attaining his coup de grace in roughly five and a half months time. At which point he will be discovered, captured, tortured, executed etc.

"Our security service's decided that any information is better than none and rather than send a high-risk agent on a delicate mission straight off the bat they would send Sherlock to gleen as much as he could from less important sources. Still a suicide mission of course. You just don't normally _tell _the agent you're sending that part."

John let himself contemplate all that before talking again. He considered just how pared down the details were, and how much of it would be lies. At any rate it told him as much as he needed to know for getting on with. Mycroft had certainly told him more than John had expected.

"So we're following him?" he stated baldly.

"Sherlock was to have made dead-drops of information along the way. Horribly old fasioned I know, yet apparently deemed the most suited to this mission."

"And the government's just OK with you waltzing in here early, picking up your brother's trail, they won't susp-"

"The British government will learn to adjust to this or it will have much bigger problems to deal with."

John shivered at the coldness in Mycroft's voice. He began to actually look at Sherlock's older brother for the first time. Here was a man who quite simply joined the dots very fast. Lightening fast. He could make connections no one else in the room would have thought to look for. His brain could store vast amounts of information and cross reference at an alarming pace. Sherlock had said that the government had begun using Mycroft as a short-cut before his intelligence had made him indisposable. John wondered if the government would now be paying for their laziness.

Mycroft may have seemed an unthreatening man, languidly drifting to the top as his roots in each department grew and spread. Yet when you thought of the power he had acrewed... Mycroft was a supercomputer made sentient. John wasn't sure if they shouldn't all be more than a little bit scared.

Sherlock was a finely honed tool - he had channeled himself into becoming a precision instrument, meant to slash and cut at mysteries and conspiracies until he laid bare the truth. Mycroft had put no such effort into refining himself. He was angry now though. He might not even know it himself but John could feel the anger building in the man sitting next to him. He had seen his little brother used and betrayed - the whole damn country country used and betrayed for that matter - by idiocy, incompetency and greed just too many times.

_Do not wake the sleeping giant..._ All Mycroft's powers were rising, not like Sherlock's blade and fire, but in a cold implacable storm surge. _The East wind takes us all._ John Watson wondered for just how many people, before all this was over, Mycroft would become the East wind.

-/-

Sherlock had woken when the first weak light of dawn filtered through the forrest canopy to where he slept. He had bedded down for the remainder of the night, utterly spent and exhausted, in a sodden pile of mulchy leaves. His fear and adrenelin had got him up far earlier than his body needed he noted when he stood up to a spinning and painful head. Next camp, next target. Get the information, make the drop. Move on. That was what he let roll around his mind as he trudged on. Make the drop. Move on. He repeated it with every reluctant footstep.

He was Sherlock Holmes, he did not get the luxary of giving up. Not even when he kept hearing the snap of phantom dogs behind him. Not even as he heard the clank of chains and vicous demands for information draw ever nearer. Sherlock Holmes did not permit himself such weaknesses. The East wind takes us all in the end. Sherlock knew now that he would never live to see the cleaner, better, stronger land it left behind, but he was damned if it would take him before he let it.

Somewhere in that watery sunlight and muddy landscape, Sherlock Holmes found the strength to keep walking toward his end.

-/-

Mycroft pursed his lips and let out an irritated huff as his feet stepped into the wet grass at the edge of the runway. He turned to find John hurrying after him. The doctor's jaw was set and his shoulders pushed back; his eyes were filled with a resolve that came naturally to him. Mycroft had to work so hard to find that level of determination in himself. He mused on how comforting it was to have the steady dependable warmth of John Watson by your side - and Mycroft had only had him for a few hours. He could start to see what little brother saw in this companionship buisness. Mycroft buried his already numb hands into his coat pocket and followed his best hope of finding Sherlock (alive, at least) out into the cold January air.

**-/-**  
**Admittedly not the most action-packed of chapters, but I am hoping to get the story moving in the future.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Hi and sorry for the length of time in publishing this (and indeed the shortness of it). I got a bit swamped with work after posting the first two chapters. Updates may continue to be sporadic as my workload fluctuates. However I would like to say thank you to everyone who took the time to read this, and those who reviewed or clicked follow or favourite, for bringing me back to update. I only ask for patience from you lovely people :)**

Sherlock had spent the day skulking around the perimeter of the camp and by now it was nearing dusk. Ideally he would have liked to do several days recon, but try as he might he couldn't ignore his body forever and hunger, lack of sleep and the persistent cold were slowly wearing him down. He could not afford another night in the open.

Taking advantage of the murky twilight (fuzzy vision without clarity but also without the guards having gained the alertness they needed at night) he slipped into what he had guessed to be a shower block. He entered the outer door, binned his clothes and headed for the changing area with a trajectory that suggested he had come from the cubicals. Finding an isolated peg, he dressed in a mix of uniforms and quickly fell in with a leaving group of soldiers. They were a group who knew each other but were not close friends, and the group was big enough that he could slip in unnoticed. A young soldier he found himself next to, assuming Sherlock was a mutual friend of a friend he had simply forgotten about, started to include Sherlock in the group's conversation. By the time they reached the mess there were 15 people who would testify to knowing Sherlock.

He accepted a non descript meal reluctantly. Eating from necessity always made him feel betrayed by his own body. Still, no John or Mycroft or Lestrade this time, no one to work with him. No one to care how starved he was. No one to hide his own humanity from.

The soldier next to him told a joke that taught Sherlock a brand new Serbian word (he guessed it from a context he normally pleaded ignorance of) and Sherlock laughed along whilst scanning the mess for a seat. He found his mark at the end of one of the long tables sitting facing the wall. The man did not have the build of nor easy comradery with the other soldiers suggesting he fulfilled a different task to them. His finger tips were flattened suggesting a professional typist (or maybe concert pianist, but well... balance of probability...) and they were also blackened from rifling through sheets of paper. Office worker then. In a place like this the administrative staff would be pared back to only the essentials meaning this man probably handled important documents personally. And his downcast, hunched demeanor suggested stress.

Sherlock - his meal now a prop rather than a burden - strode over, sat down and started idle chatter. He felt a thrill and satisfaction as this man gave up secrets he did not know he was telling. When was the game ever truly over?

-/-

John saw a look on Mycroft's face, already worn from 'exertion', that made his stomach drop sickeningly. They had spent the last hour digging and probing around a tree that Mycroft swore the information drop would be buried under to no avail. Now John saw Mycroft had quite clearly given up on it being found. And Mycroft always had a plan. Which meant Sherlock had definitely not managed to make the drop. Which meant...

"Do cheer up doctor, leg work is hard enough without you looking mawkish all the time."

"Cheer up - " John nearly choked on his words. "Sherlock didn't make it here. Sherlock didn't finish a case!" He was careful not raise his voice above a level but was slowly becoming more frantic.

"Sherlock is rarely without a back-up plan. The fact he had been here before made this stage particularly risky but also allowed us to plan a contingency procedure. My brother was to hide all his research inside this facility during his mission and would drop it here on departing safely. Clearly he did not depart safely. However we are are not left without options."

Mycoft set off towards the base at a smart pace.

"Come along doctor," he called behind him. John followed knowing Mycroft would need his nerve to get through this, and trying to ignore the whiteness of the elder Holmes' knuckles, clutched tight around his cane.


	4. Chapter 4

"Jesus Christ." John put his hand on the cold stone wall for support and breathed sharply through his nose to stop himself from retching.

"I brought you here because I thought you had the stomach to deal with distressing situations. If I had known you would wilt like that I would have left you in your cozy front room. And _please_ remember to keep the English to a bare minimum."

John realised that Mycroft was studiously keeping his voice to a barely above a whisper. He also realised that Mycroft's voice was far too carefully steady, his words too carefully placed. John felt a perverse relief in knowing Mycroft was shaken too. It meant what he was standing in had not become normality. John had chosen violence and the grimy underside of humanity as a way of life but he needed a touchstone of cozy reality - needed to know the darkness he dealt with day to day was _not_ how the world as a whole was supposed to operate - to keep him going.

Mycroft had breezed them past security with an ease and confidence John had only witnessed in Sherlock when the detective was at the height of his game. It gave him an impression of familiarity so incongruous to their surroundings that he had almost laughed. He had managed to pass that off as a cough.

God this place was bleak.

Mycroft had got them into a small interrogation room alone. He worked a brick free from the wall - and the part of John's brain that was still able to note such details was storing that up to taunt Sherlock with later, bit cliché wasn't it, false bricks? - and removed from it a bundle of papers wrapped tight around a memory stick. Using his phone (well, a bit more high tech than a phone but John was sticking with phone) Mycroft was uploading the memory stick's data. And John had to stand there and wait, whilst trying to deal with his surroundings.

Seeing the place where Sherlock had gone through so much pain was taking its toll on the doctor. He was used to traumatic situations, he was used to murder scenes and battlegrounds. Yet here... the silence but for the listless drip of water, the rusted metal and dried blood and the ever persistent cold was somehow more harrowing to him. Somehow the visceral horror of what he normally faced allowed him to gain excitement. A thrill. Here was far too chilling. The casual deliberateness of the cruelty meted out by people to people, and not just any people, to his _friend_ was enough to make him nauseous.

"Can't you hurry up?" he spat at Mycroft through clenched teeth.

"No John, the good of the mission before our own personal comforts."

Oh dammit all to hell. People had hurt Sherlock. They'd tortured him. They'd made it their job to make him suffer. He'd been trapped in this room and bled onto this floor and there was nothing John could do but stand there and look at the aftermath. He couldn't stop it when it was thehappening, he hadn't healed Sherlock after it had happened and now during s rescue mission that John had fought for, he was useless. He could only stand there impotently whilst Mycroft did something terribly clever in another language. John thrust his hand into his pocket to stop the tremor.

"A search party was deployed three night ago in pursuit of an unspecified target." Mycroft's voice made John jump. With the rage building in his head he'd forgotten how quiet this place was. " Needed to do something whilst the data was uploading so reading confidential files seemed like a good use of time. As you can see," Mycroft gestured around the room," they returned empty handed."

"Sherlock?"

"Sherlock." Mycroft nodded. "Only my little brother could have caused this much fuss at an outpost this remote and yet have evaded capture."

"Right," John wanted to ask what if they'd just killed him or what if a million other horrible awful things but decided to trust in Mycroft's confidence. There was no need to spread doubt.

"Onwards John, there's hope yet." Mycroft marched briskly out the room without a second glance.

John however, let himself drink it all in. He would not allow himself to forget this place. The absolute coldness of the place. The knowledge of the injuries suffered here. This kind of clinical cruelty was completely alien to John Watson's soul, yet he _made_ himself look long and hard. Finally, knowing that this room was painted into his memories with indelible ink, he turned and left. A slow burning, smouldering rage fueled him now. He would not feel like that again. God have mercy on whoever stood in his way, John Watson was going to save a friend.

-/-

Said friend was at that moment contemplating just how good he was at picking locks. It was an art form really. In fact Sherlock had made such an impression on the secretary he could have had the door left open for him. But Sherlock preferred it this way. It all added to the fun.

Really, he thought, as the door swung soundlessly open in the dark corridor, he was getting far too good at this espionage game all together. He smiled to himself. The government had though this target would take him three days to crack and he'd managed eight hours. He'd be through with this mission in two weeks at this rate.

His smile faltered as he realised just how final the end of this mission would be.

With considerably less glee Sherlock slipped into the office. He had work to do.


	5. Chapter 5

**Hi, I got a review through yesterday that reminded me just how long it had been since I had updated. Thank you for the patience of everyone still following me and thank you all for reading. Sorry this is a bit short, life's still hectic but I'll try and not leave it quite so long again. Hope you enjoy:)**

What had started out as a suspicion just a few days ago, had grown steadily with each hour, was now confirmed by Mycroft delivering a sharp kick to a wall. Mycroft Holmes was frustrated. John Watson thought now might be as good a time as any to break in. They'd spent the past week doggedly following Sherlock, and at every turn found the detective just a little bit further ahead of them.

"We're not going to catch up with him are we?" John said, more of a statement f fact then a question really.

Mycroft pinched the bridge of his nose breathing hard, and took a few seconds to answer.

"No," The word seemed forced out against his will "Unless he gets himself caught there's no catching up with him."

"Right and you'd underestimated how quickly he could..?"

"Doctor as my brother no doubt told you neither modesty nor boastfulness serve any purpose. I see my brother's intelligence as it truly is. I neither under nor overestimate him and I haven't since I first analysed him a child."

"OK well that's all well and fancy but we're quite out of our depts now."

"If you'd be so good as to let me finish John. What I did underestimate was the time required for leg work. I have no experience to go on, a true intelligence knows their own limits and delegates when necessary. I read the official analysis of the mission. I adjusted their timings for my own estimations of Sherlock but I had more faith in their analysis than mine. And now here we are, in another fruitless dank little hovel with little brother miles ahead."

"So we skip to the end." John said.

Mycroft looked up, met John's eyes and smiled."Exactly."

John felt a shiver run through him at being on the same wavelength as the man in front of him. Over the past week he had watched Mycroft perform a continuous string of manipulations, deductions and keep so many deceptions in the air that the doctor's previous instinctual fear of the elder Holmes was now a fear based on observation. This was Mycroft with very little field experience. This was a man who was never more than five minutes from a home comfort. Imagine what he'd be like in a month.

What John hadn't realised was how much Mycroft was starting to rely on him. John was no longer a passive hanger on. There was barely a major move that Mycroft did not run by John now to watch the doctor pick up the petty human details he had missed. Petty human details that would have brought this all crashing down around their heads long ago.

But what neither man had realised, but both were unconsciously grateful for, was to have another person to stand with who would go to the lengths and depths that they would for Sherlock Homes.

-/-

Sherlock was burning through his missions now. He was using up his time on Earth at a rather alarming rate in fact. Really, he thought, as he ingratiated himself at yet another camp with a muddy football match, you'd think he was racing to the finish line. In his existential crisis he missed a shot at a goal and was duly relegated to a defensive position. He supposed he had no reason to stop and wait... nothing to hold him back now. He had said goodbye to everything that mattered back in London. Just the thrill of the game to keep him going. A game he had never played so fast before... well, he had always been a little but self-destructive. A vicious tackle lost him his footing and laughter from the other players greeted his mouthful of mud. He grinned in spite of himself and sprang back to his feet to rejoin the match. Not long to go now, may as well enjoy it whilst it lasted.


End file.
